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Friday, 27 June 2014

Delicious
Earl Grey cupcakes with a subtle lemon buttercream, decorated with a country
garden theme.

My
manager retired earlier this month and so her leaving party was definitely an
opportunity for some special, extra-effort cupcakes. I had to make a Sticky Ginger Cake, as this is my signature bake at work and much loved by my manager.
To accompany this, I decided to make Primrose Bakery’s Earl Grey cupcakes,
as she is a big fan of Earl Grey tea. The following recipe is my version of
these cupcakes – I have made them in the past and found that the tea flavour
was rather faint, so I added in an extra tea bag to give them a bit more oomph!

The
PB book suggests vanilla buttercream, but I decided to go for a lemon
buttercream to give a bit of gentle zing to the cakes – and I feel that lemon
works really well with the tea flavour. The lemon buttercream recipe below is a
bit more subtle than the one I generally use – as I didn’t want to overwhelm
the tea flavour, so I added a bit of milk rather than all lemon juice to the
mix.

As
my manager is a keen gardener, I decided on a gardening theme. I flicked through
Pinterest for some inspiration and then sketched out my design. I decided on
the simple dirt path, as this seemed much simpler and quicker than making
paving stones as I did on my Magic Garden set of cupcakes. I had some Lakeland
citrus sugar, a bit like this one, that I used to scatter on the paths, but
they don’t appear to sell it anymore, so I have suggested just using a mix of
brown sugars instead. For the grass, you will need a grass piping nozzle that looks something like the one pictured. Mine came in a set from Lakeland that is incredibly useful!

You
can save time on the day by making the fondant flowers, leaves and other
decorative items in advance. To make the cauliflower and cabbages, I used a 5
petal flower cutter like that pictured. However, don’t buy cutters like this
separately, there are some fantastic deals for plunger cutter sets on Amazon or
Ebay. You don’t need to add the tiny butterflies, but I had a tub of butterfly
sprinkles in the cupboard and I think that they add a lovely touch.

I
was really pleased with how these cakes turned out. They did take quite a bit
of effort, but I think that they were worth it! The tea flavour came through
well and worked nicely with the subtle lemon buttercream. I was a bit disappointed
that the Bergamot flavour of the Earl Grey tea did not come through as strongly
as I might have hoped. I’m not sure how to intensify this without over-doing
the tea flavour – Google does not seem to give me any answers! I can’t seem to
find a bergamot flavouring and I’m not sure about adding pure essential oil to
cakes! I used Twinings Earl Grey teabags, but I may try an alternative next time
– perhaps even using tea leaves rather than tea bags.

Earl
Grey cupcakes with lemon buttercream

(single
batch of 12 cupcakes)

Ingredients

175ml
semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

5
Earl Grey tea bags

110g
butter, at room temperature

225g
golden castor sugar

2
large eggs, beaten

125g
self-raising flour, sifted

120g
plain flour, sifted

Buttercream:

110g
butter, at room temperature

20ml
milk, at room temperature

40ml
freshly squeezed lemon juice

500g
icing sugar, sifted

Method

Heat
125ml milk in a saucepan over a medium heat until it just begins to boil.

Remove
from the heat and add the tea bags.

Cover
with clingfilm and leave to infuse for about 30 minutes.

Discard
the tea bags and add the extra 50ml of milk.

Preheat
oven to 160C.

Line
a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.

In
a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (this
will take at least 5 minutes with an electric hand mixer – don’t rush this
stage).

Add
the beaten eggs, a little at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each
addition. It should result in a lovely light mousse-like mixture.

Combine
the plain flour with the self-raising flour and all of the spices in a separate
bowl.

Add
one third of the flours to the creamed mixture and stir gently to combine.

Pour
in one third of the infused milk and stir gently.

Continue
to add flours and then milk mixture alternately, stirring gently after each
addition, until all have been added.

Spoon
mixture into the cupcake cases, filling to about 2/3 full.

Bake
in the oven for about 30 minutes until lightly golden brown. The cakes will
spring back lightly when touched, if cooked.

Remove
from the oven and leave to cool in tin for about 10 minutes, before carefully
placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

While
the cakes are in the oven, make up the buttercream:

In
a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, milk, lemon juice and half of the icing
sugar until smooth.

Add
the rest of the icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.

To
decorate

Food
colouring (preferably pastes rather than liquids)

Golden
caster sugar / Demerara sugar

Ready-to-roll
fondant icing – various colours, including green

Butterfly
sprinkles

Writing
icing

Method

Use
plunger cutters to create flowers and leaves and set aside to dry (this can be
done several days in advance).

Mould
additional decorative items, such as wellies, flower pots and vegetables out of
fondant icing (see above for tips on cauliflowers and cabbages). (Again, this
can be done in advance)

Use
writing icing to add centre to the flowers

Remove
¼ of the buttercream from the bowl and colour this brown.

Colour
the remaining buttercream green.

Use
a palette knife to spread the brown buttercream onto some of the cupcakes as a
vegetable patch and as a path.

Sprinkle
a mix of golden and Demerara sugar onto the paths.

Place
green buttercream in a piping bag with a grass nozzle attached.

Pipe
grass around the vegetable patches, on either side of the paths and onto the
remaining cupcakes.

Lemon Tart is one of my all-time favourite desserts but
something that I have never attempted to bake before. With friends coming round
for dinner and an afternoon to bake, I searched through lots of my cookery
books for inspiration and, as I flicked through my ever-reliable Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook, I came across this recipe for lemon tart – perfect!

Well, almost perfect … Having decided to follow this
recipe and having made a start on the pastry, I realised that I didn’t have a
big enough flan tin (this recipe required a 28cm tin) and, anyway, I really
didn’t need to make a tart big enough for 10-12 people! The only flan tin that
I own is 23cm and, after some rough calculations with the help of my
ever-hungry husband (EHH), I decided to reduce the ingredients for the filling
by one-third – fortunately, these quantities worked perfectly! As the pastry is
made using one egg, it is difficult to reduce the quantities, so I have
retained the pastry quantities: you can freeze the remainder or make some
little jam tarts!!

I often avoid making desserts with pastry, or cheat and
buy ready-made pastry, but actually, the pastry was easy to make and worked out
fairly well. When making pastry, I follow the Biscuiteers’ tip for biscuits and
I roll the pastry between two sheets of baking parchment – which prevents me
from needing to add lots of additional flour as I roll and this helps to keep
the pastry light and crisp. It also makes it much easier to lift the pastry
into the flan tin!

Unlike some of my prior attempts at pastry, this pastry
did not shrink away from the edges of the tin whilst at the blind-baking stage
– which I think was due to very careful placing of the pastry in the tin,
pushing it into the side of the tin (taking care not to stretch the pastry and
then trimming the majority of the excess pastry, but leaving a 2-3cm overhang.

However, I didn’t roll the pastry dough thin enough and
so it was a little thick (although EHH quite likes this!) and, despite
following the blind baking rules, the bottom was not as crisp as Paul and Mary
would like! Having done a bit more research on “soggy bottoms”, one of the
recommendations is that, having completed the first stage of blind baking (with
the baking beans), you then remove the baking beans and brush the pastry with
whisked egg (or egg whites / yolk) before returning the pastry case to the oven
to continue baking. This egg-wash helps to seal the pastry and therefore
prevent the filling from seeping into the pastry and making it soggy. I’ve
included this instruction in the recipe below and will give this a go next time
that I make a tart.

The filling for the tart was quick and easy to make.
However, the end result was a little curdled and not perfectly smooth. Some
research suggests that this could be a result of the acid in the lemon juice
curdling the protein in the egg – the webpages I have read suggest that you mix
all the ingredients for the filling and add the lemon juice / zest last – so I
have proposed this in my method below.

Overall, despite all my criticisms above, the lemon tart
did generally taste good and my dinner guests really enjoyed it. Hopefully,
with the improvements discussed above and included in the method below, it will
be perfect – I’ll have to make another to test it out! I served it with a very
simple summer berry sauce, which would be great with lots of other desserts,
and double cream. However it would also work brilliantly for afternoon tea!

Lemon tart

Ingredients

For the pastry

250g plain flour

125g cold butter, cut into small cubes

60g caster sugar

2 free-range eggs, beaten

For the lemon filling

6 free-range eggs

200ml double cream

250g caster sugar

4 large lemons, finely grated zest and juice

23cm flan tin

Baking beans

Method

For the pastry, place the flour in a large bowl; add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture looks like
fine breadcrumbs.

Stir in the castor sugar then bind together with one
beaten egg to make a soft, pliable dough.

Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200C and place a baking tray in the oven to heat up.

Roll out the pastry very thinly between two lightly
floured pieces of baking parchment.

Use the pastry to line the flan tin, trim away any
surplus pastry, leaving a 2-3cm overhang.

Prick the pastry all over with a fork.

Line the pastry-filled tin with baking parchment or foil,
allowing it to come up high above the rim to make it easy to lift out.

Fill the lined tin with baking beans.

Place on the pre-heated baking tray and bake for 10 minutes
in the preheated oven until pale golden-brown.

Remove from the oven and remove the baking beans and
paper.

Brush the pastry with the remaining beaten egg.

Return the empty pastry shell to the oven for another
5-10 minutes or until it is completely dry. Set aside to cool.

Reduce the temperature of the oven to 180C.

Measure the eggs, sugar and cream into a bowl and whisk
together until smooth.

Whisk in the lemon juice and zest.

Carefully pour the filling mixture into the cooled baked
pastry case.

Carefully transfer to the oven and bake for about 40
minutes. Check after about 25 minutes and cover the tart loosely with foil if
the pastry starts to brown too much.

When ready, the filling will be just set but with a
slight wobble in the middle. It will be soufflé like when it comes out of the
oven, but will sink down when it has cooled down.

Leave to cool a little or completely then remove from the
tin, transfer to a serving plate and dust with icing sugar to serve.